


Where Were You on K-Day?

by ScreechTheMighty



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, K-Day, Pre-Movie, Re-posted from an old work that I deleted for reasons whoops, This was the prologue of "Everything Changes"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:58:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2171895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never forget where you were the day the world changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Were You on K-Day?

**Author's Note:**

> So I had an idea to reboot my K-Day fic (which, you may have noticed, wasn't going as planned in the slightest). That plan involves a bit of a genre shift that you can blame on Max Brooks and my new copy of the World War Z audiobook, so unfortunately I have to scrap what I HAVE written and start over. However, since I really liked how the prologue turned out, I figured I'd post it as its own fic. I'd been meaning to write something like this anyway, and now I have. Sorry about all the confusion.

_Anchorage, Alaska. August 10, 2013. 8:45 AM_

“Yancy!” A pillow bounced off Yancy’s back with a solid _thud._ “Yancy, wake up!”

Yancy groaned loudly. It was a Saturday. He was supposed to sleep in. Why should he wake up? “Go _away_ , Raleigh,” he grumbled. “’m trying to sleep.”

“ _C’mon!_ ” Raleigh threw another pillow at his brother before running across the hall to his sister’s room. “Jaz! _Jaz!_ ”

“What, Raleigh?” Jazmine was a bit more awake than Yancy, but just as pleased about being awoken by her brother—which is to say, not at all. “What do you want?”

“Come downstairs! You guys have gotta see what Mom and Dad are watching!”

 

_Boston, Massachusetts. August 10, 2013. 12:55 PM_

He wasn’t the only one at the café with several books in front of them. He was, however, probably the only one there who was prepping for the upcoming semester as a _teacher._ Sure, school didn’t start for another month, but he had to be prepared. Putting things off until the last minute was for the kids (which was weird to think, since he _was_ technically one of “the kids”), and anyway, stress wonked him out pretty badly. Better to be ready and calm on the first day.

There was a split second of silence in between tracks as one song on his iPod died down and another began to play. In that split second, he heard the quiet chatter of the people in the café. Then, something else—a low, growling roar. Newt frowned. _Did someone change the channel?_ That sounded like a noise from a Godzilla movie or something, but the news had been on earlier. Someone must have changed the channel.

Newt glanced at the screen, then did a double-take. The news was still on, but what was on the screen was…no way. He actually stood on his chair to get a better look as a crowd started to form in front of the TV. No one yelled at him for it. Everyone was too busy staring at the screen.

“What the _hell?_ ” Newt breathed.

 

_London, England. August 10, 2013. 6:05 PM_

It was just a night out. That was all. Just a night out with some of the other lads from work. People asked how Luna and Tamsin were doing, and he said they were fine; they’d been stationed out in the US for a bit, something to do with a training program. She’d just called him that afternoon, and he didn’t expect to hear from either one of them again until tomorrow. They were busy as it was.

Hence the reason why, when he checked his insistently buzzing phone, Stacker was surprised to see that it was his sister calling. “Luna?” He had to shout a bit to be heard over the chatter in the pub. “Luna, is that you?”

“Are you near a TV?” Luna asked. There was something odd about her voice. It had a strange hint of…fear, disbelief? It was difficult to tell over the phone. But it wasn’t something he was used to hearing from his sister.

“There’s one right over here. Luna, what’s going on?”

As Stacker spoke, he turned around to look at the TV. The first thing he noticed was that the game was gone, replaced by the news. Something was happening in America. Something…

“Do you see it?”

He did. And the entire pub fell into an awed silence as they saw it, too.

 

_Berlin, Germany. August 10, 2013. 6:20 pm._

There were, in general, perks to having his younger brother as a flat mate versus someone else. He knew Bastien’s schedule. He knew Bastien’s habits and temperament. Bastien was quiet, respectful, and remembered to do the dishes. Even his idea of _late_ never ran past eleven o’clock. Hermann couldn’t complain.

Well, except when Bastien burst through the door like a damned tornado, letting it bang open and shut, and ran into the living room without so much as a _how do you do._ “Bastien…!”

“Sorry, sorry, just…” The television flickered to life. “Come here and look at this! _Look!_ ”

Hermann sighed and hobbled from the kitchen to the living room. His back had been giving him trouble lately, and it wasn’t improving his mood whatsoever. Despite this, he tried to be patient with Bastien’s fast-paced explanation. “I was just making my way back, yeah, and I was listening to the radio, and they said something was happening in America…California, I think?” He stopped on a news channel, his eyes going wide. “See?!”

He did see. But he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The channel number, the ticker at the bottom, the logo, all said that this was definitely a news channel. But what he was looking at…no, it wasn’t real. It _couldn’t_ be real.

Hermann sat down next to his brother. “What in God’s name…?”

“I don’t know.”

They stayed there, silent and still, for a good portion of the night.

 

_Tanegashima, Japan. August 11, 2013. 5:35 AM_

It was the sound of the TV playing that woke her up. It was about the time that Father left the house, but usually he was quiet. He wouldn’t even wake her up when he came into the room to give her a kiss and say good morning. Father was always gone without a sound by the time she woke up. Why could she hear him now?

Maybe something was wrong.

Mako got out of bed and walked down the hall to the living room. Mother and Father were both awake, staring at the TV. It looked like there was a movie on, one of the kaiju films that she wasn’t allowed to see yet. “What are you watching?” she asked with a yawn.

Mother and Father looked at each other. They both looked worried. That was how she knew something was wrong.

 

_Sydney, Australia. August 11, 2013. 7:00 AM_

Angela didn’t want Chuck to see.

Herc couldn’t blame her. Chuck was a big kid, yeah, and getting bigger every day. But he was too young to really grasp what was going on. Hell, Herc was a grown man, and he had _no_ idea what he was looking at.

_What is going on? How can this be happening?_

The other thing about Chuck was that he was willful. If he wanted something, he was going to get it. And he _really_ wanted to know what was going on. Herc didn’t notice his son watching from the hallway until one of the dogs started barking at him. Chuck’s attempts to shush him were unsuccessful. “ _Charles Hansen!_ ” Herc was at his son’s side in a heartbeat, lifted him up and ushering him back down the hall as quickly as possible. “I told you to stay in your room…!”

“I wanna see it!” Chuck struggled to look behind Herc at the TV. “C’mon! What’s going on? What’s in California?”

Herc stopped just outside of Chuck’s room. In the living room, the TV played on, broadcasting…whatever the hell it was that was going on in America. He had been watching it all morning, and Herc still couldn’t make sense of it. He could tell himself over and over that this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be happening. But still, the news kept saying the same thing.

_Giant creature attacks San Francisco._

“I don’t know, son,” Herc admitted finally. “I don’t know.”

**Author's Note:**

> New and improved K-Day fic coming soon, though I'll probably write out the whole thing BEFORE I post it so that I don't completely fall behind in posting it again. I really need to just do that with everything I write from now on.
> 
> Also I'm not TERRIBLY fond of the first chapter of the old K-Day fic (the chapter from Tendo's POV), but if you did happen to enjoy that and want to see it posted separately too, let me know in the comments and I'll post it! Rest assured, Tendo will be in the updated version too. He'll just be telling his story in a different way.


End file.
